1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a method adapted to perform association processing between image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
As digitization and networking proceed, the practice of converting a variety of information to electronic content for storing and distribution has become widespread. For instance, document data generated by a personal computer (PC), image data generated by digitizing a paper document with a scanner apparatus, and image data photographed by a digital camera are stored in a server or distributed via E-mail on a daily basis.
In this circumstance, there are cases where image data is stored and saved in addition to text files input by using a PC or the like as materials prepared as minutes after the conference is held. Examples of such practice may include generating image data by scanning handouts with a hand-written memo, or generating image data by digitally photographing hand-written content on a whiteboard at the conference (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-97608).
When referring back to the minutes of the conference afterwards, there is a need for consulting the content written on the whiteboard to know the relationship of a plurality of materials.
However, since such a plurality of image data is usually stored separately, any information regarding the association between the written content of the whiteboard and content of the handouts cannot be recorded.
For that reason, the user has to determine these associations based on the user's memory. Alternatively, the user needs to separately prepare a management table in which associations are described, or the user needs to manually embed association information into a file. However, there are problems that the former has possibility that association information becomes uncertain, while the latter takes a lot of time and trouble.
With respect to such association of images, there is proposed a document association technique using mark recognition. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-97608 discusses an apparatus configured to read sentences of a plurality of pages in which the same symbol is marked on two associated pages and to generate a document using a structure description language enabling accessing mutual pages while recognizing that symbol. With this apparatus, the user can generate a document in which association is assigned between two pages, by attaching the same symbol to two associated pages and causing the apparatus to read these pages.
However, the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-97608 is directed to generating a single document having association information for pages, and is not directed to allowing a cross-reference among a plurality of documents. In addition, the association information is added only between two pages. Therefore, a plurality of files cannot be associated with one another regarding a certain item.